Saturday, February 23, 2013

Sequester is killing the internet

It appears the general public is burned out on manufactured crises. Almost nobody paying attention to the scary sequester showdown except obsessives and paid media who doggedly continue to transcribe the tactical minutia of the contest. Which at this point on the Republican side is a desperate bid to try to shift ownership of the sequester solely onto President Obama. Yes I know, stupid and deceitful but that didn't stop Bob Woodward from delivering some of the dumbest punditry ever to come from a website that doesn't have Zombie Breitbart's imprimatur stamped on it.

Woodward's farcical case for blaming Obama had all of Wingnuttia drooling into their keyboards today. It matters not at all that Woodward ignored the salient facts that disproved his whole thesis. Didn't stop the wingnuts from rushing to spread Woodward's validation of their cockamamie meme.

Meanwhile, at The Atlantic Wire's sister site, Atlantic politics editor David Graham speculated that since the sequester was a bipartisan invention, it has failed to generate the kind of left-versus-right food fight that is typically great for traffic.

Apparently, the electorate still remembers the sequester was a stupid deal made necessary by Boehner's inability to corral his caucus into a sensible solution. It was made in desperation and haste; based on the flawed notion establishment Republicans just needed a little more time to co-opt their crackpot contingent. Except the well-funded insurgents refused to be co-opted and instead doubled down on the crazy. Their livelihood depends on never accepting any deal that is in any way associated with the "Democrat Party" in general and President Obama in particular.

Of course Big Media won't tell you that, and even the less corporate, more honest news sites won't either. Everyone making a living on delivering news is just biding their time with an eye to the fallout:

But while voters may be tired of their elected officials inventing phony deadlines rooted in their own dysfunction rather than in reality, there's little doubt that if the cuts do go into effect, the consequences will be very real. And so journalists continue to labor on through the valley of page view death.

"It's a worthy topic to cover," said Stein. "And it is bound to get more important and interesting if sequestration does, in fact, hit. There will be tons of stories to tell then, both inside and outside of Washington, D.C."

Interesting that he's saying "if" it goes through. There's a fair number of Big Media pushing a sequester - meh - theme to keep it from dying under its own destructive absurdity.

File that under what's wrong with everything. The 24/7 news beast is insatiable. It demands page views. The news media's incentive is to heat up the controversy, not quash it with cold facts. But you can't blame them entirely. It's also what the outrage addicts on all sides want. It's their job to give it to them.